Business of the House

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

As I have said to other Members, I am always open to taking up specific cases with Ministers and Departments on behalf of individual Members in relation to their constituents. On the general point on ambulances, NHS England has given ambulance trusts an extra £55 million to boost staff numbers this winter, and the NHS has been supported this winter, including with £478 million as part of the enhanced hospital discharge programme, which frees up beds and therefore makes patient admissions at the front end easier. So considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money are being committed to helping the ambulance service, but, as I said, if there is a specific issue with a specific hospital on which the hon. Gentleman has not been able to get a satisfactory answer from the Department of Health and Social Care, my office will be more than happy to help.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Woodchurch leisure centre and the libraries in Greasby, Irby, Hoylake, Pensby and Woodchurch are really important to the quality of life and wellbeing of thousands of people in my constituency, including many living in areas of deprivation, yet all are under threat of closure as a result of savings that Wirral Council is required to make after more than a decade of brutal funding cuts by Conservative-led central Government. I note the Leader of the House’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) earlier this morning, but will he remind his colleague the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities that when he came to office he said he wanted to

“raise living standards especially where they are lower”

and

“improve public services especially where they are weaker”,

and will the Leader of the House, as a matter of urgency, let us have a debate in Government time on the impact of central Government cuts on the provision of libraries and leisure centres?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We will have a debate, if we do have one, on £4.8 billion—the largest ever increase in core funding in a decade—being given to councils, in addition to £3.6 billion being given to local authorities to help with social care reform, £45 billion committed to help local authorities support their communities and local businesses during the pandemic, and £12 billion of direct support to councils since the start of the pandemic. Local councils have a democratic mandate and are there to make choices. When the local council makes choices that Members do not like, that is not the Government’s fault; it is a decision of the local council.